Anyone who knows me, knows I have a bit of a thing for lipsticks. Mac lipsticks, in particular. I’ve tried plenty of other brands but I find none are as long wearing as Mac, especially their Matte collection. I have lost a couple over the last year but at my latest count I have 23. If I’m being completely honest, I wear around 6 or 7 of those 23 regularly and 2 of those 7 on a daily basis.

My go-to shades for daily wear are Brave and Viva Glam 2. I wear them both to work and when I’m off. They’re definitely more subtle daily shades. I’ve never finished a lipstick for two reasons. 1) because I have so many and 2) because I tend to lose them. I’m almost at the end of my Viva Glam 2. I have a second lined up and ready though.

Brave & Viva Glam 2

My favourite shades for going out or special occasions are Ruby Woo, Rebel, Lickable, Hue and Hang Up. My Rebel is on the missing list so I’ll have to replace that.

Hang-Up, Ruby Woo, Lickable & Hue

I rarely use the rest but as you can see I’m not going to run out of pink options any time soon!

The Irish/green theme is continuing in my April spread because it was the 100th anniversary of the 1916 Easter Rising in Ireland. In April I I went to Dublin Zoo and Eddie Rockets with my friend Emma, her daughter and our other friend’s daughter. I have put a little doodle from the ‘A Beautiful Mess’ app over their faces for the purpose of this post because I haven’t asked their permission to post pictures of their children. There’s also a picture from a night out with the girls and finally a picture of a Dolmen I saw on a trip down to Mizen Head in Cork. It also includes a photo of Chief, just because!

Project Life Kits:

Seafoam (Core Kit): The orange lined card is from the Seafoam kit.

Midnight (Core Kit): The polka dot card is from the Midnight kit.

Season (Core Kit): The green 4x6card is from the Seasons kit.

Alpha Stickers:

The black alpha stickers used for ‘April’ are ‘Ali’ Thickers designed for Studio Calico.

Embellishment Stickers:

The ‘Proud to be Irish’ sticker is actually from an Irish postcard with stickers on it that I bought years ago.

Pocket Pages: I used Becky Higgins Design D for this spread.

Spread 2:

Spread 2 is made up of a trip to the Aviva Stadium for an Ireland match, A cuddle with Dasha, the Tri-colour with Easter Sunday breakfast, new nails and City Hall in Cork, lit up in green, white and orange to commemorate the 1916 Rising.

Project Life Kits:

Midnight (Core Kit): The polka dot card is from the Midnight kit.

Season (Core Kit): The green 4x6card is from the Seasons kit.

I used the ‘And The Story Continues…’ card to explain the theme staying the same from March to April and a small 3×4 green card from the Seasons kit.

Pocket Pages: I used Becky Higgins Design A for this spread.

Overall, I’m not delighted with this spread but it will do. I kept putting it off and that’s why I decided to just get it finished, post it and move on.

I’m not sure the colour of these brushes is coming up as nice in this photo as they are in real life. They’re so pretty that I was not leaving without them. They were €8 and they’re from Penneys (Primark if you’re outside Ireland).

Now I’m not saying much for how good they’ll be as brushes because I haven’t used them yet but I’ll give them a go this weekend and the seem nice and soft so far.

They even come with this explanation for each brush and how to use them.

Around this time last year, myself and my friend Emma were living it up in San Francisco. I had wanted to go and see San Fran and Alcatraz for years. We went for 5 nights and we packed a lot in. Unfortunately, my camera lens started to die while I was there so I took most of my photos on my iPhone. Then to top that off, during the night on the second night, my phone had some sort of meltdown and I had to bring it to the Apple store the next day where they had no choice but to completely reset it, so I lost all of the photos from the first two days, including Alcatraz. Oh and did I mention that our suitcases never made the flight? Mine turned up within about 15 hours but Emma’s didn’t show for about 48 hours. Sounds like a nightmare doesn’t it?!

To be honest, I forgot about all of those crappy things until I sat down to write this post. They are definitely not the take aways from the trip. The only downer about it is that I don’t have many photos of Alcatraz and I have absolutely none from the food trucks at Presidio Park.

We fit in so much into such a short trip. We were up at about 6am every day and fell asleep about 10 or 11pm at the latest every night. The day we arrived we went to The Castro District. The Castro was one of the first gay neighbourhoods in the United States. Some of the pedestrian walkways are made up of the rainbow flag colours that represent the LGBT community. When we were in San Francisco, the Orlando nightclub shooting had only recently happened and there was a very touching tribute to the victims of the shooting at The Castro.

The Castro District

After visiting The Castro, we got a taxi up to the top of Twin Peaks. We took some pictures and got some great views of the city of San Francisco. By the time we finished there, we went back to the hotel (hoping our luggage had arrived – it hadn’t!) and then went for some food.

Twin Peaks

We woke at about 5am and decided this was the best morning to head to the Sausalito side of the Golden Gate Bridge to watch the sun come up. This was by far the highlight of my trip. We got soooo lucky because it was a really great sunrise. We got pizza blankets (I know, amazing!!) and went back a few mornings later but the sunrise wasn’t nearly as nice. After watching the sun come up, we waked back across the bridge. It was a lovely walk. I’ve read and heard plenty of people saying that they wouldn’t suggest walking all the way across. I disagree completely. I loved the walk so much, we did it twice.

Pizza blankets

After the walk back, we went to get some breakfast and then went to see Lombard Street which was really busy but the houses along the road are really nice with some gorgeous flowers too.

How beautiful? (Emma may kill me because she’s in this photo!)

After Lombard Street we went to Presidio Park. We went to see the Walt Disney museum, which really isn’t worth a trip in my opinion. Then we went out to the food trucks in the park, which was another highlight of my trip. Unfortunately, I have absolutely no pictures of it, but if you go to San Fran, I would definitely recommend it. We sat out in the sun, enjoying a cocktail and trying some delicious food.

After Presidio Park, we went to Alcatraz. I was so excited for this and took a million photos and lost them all so I only have this one below that was saved to my Snapchat of me in one of the cells. The tour was brilliant and there’s something so creepy about the place.

An Alcatraz cell

We were exhausted after it and went straight home to bed. Then my phone died so we spent a couple of hours the next morning in the Apple store before jumping on the hop on/hop off bus. This way we got to see a lot more without getting off the bus.

We got off the bus at Pier 39. I was a bit disapointed because there wasn’t many sea lions out. The whole area had a real holiday vibe to it with restaurants and amusements and shops. Then we walked to Fisherman’s Wharf. Again, it reminded me of that Irish seaside town vibe, but a bit warmer and prettier. (Did I mention San Francisco had a heat wave while we were there and my scalp and shoulders burnt to a crisp?).

We got an In-N-Out Burger, which we had been looking forward to and it was so worth the wait. Delicious. I’ll never look at a Big Mac the same way again. Since we were so close, it would have been rude not to pop into Ghirardelli’s. If you are unfamiliar, it’s a chocolate company and it’s famous for it’s ice-cream sundaes.

We paid for two days on the bus tour and we got to see China Town, The Oakland Bridge and Coit Tower. We also went to Haight & Ashbury which amazingly still felt like it had the hippie vibe that would have been there in the 1967 Summer of Love. We went from there to see the Painted Ladies which were absolutely beautiful. It was busy but not so busy that you couldn’t get a photo of them. I will say, as pretty as they are, I definitely saw some nicer houses scattered around San Francisco. We also went to see the Mrs Doubtfire house which was awesome, even if the taxi driver had never seen the movie and thought we were crazy.

Painted Ladies

We also managed plenty of shopping (hello Sephora!), lots of eating and a little drinking. We even fit in a visit to an Irish bar to watch Ireland beat Italy 1-0 in the 2016 Euros. So all in all, we had an amazing trip to San Francisco. It absolutely rivalled New York as my favourite place that I’ve been to in the United States. Now I have a favourite on each coast and I will definitely go back.

Is there anything I missed on my trip that you could recommend for next time?

“It’s important to remember, we all have magic inside us” – J.K.Rowling

Being the huge Harry Potter fan that I am, I thought it was only right to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Harry Potter Potter franchise.

On 26th June 1997, I was a couple of months away from my 10th birthday, Harry Potter & The Philosopher’s Stone was released and I couldn’t have been less interested. Little did I know that day, the absolute fanatic I would become.

Roughly 4 & a half years later, my cousin and her then boyfriend, now husband, insisted I watch the DVD of the first movie when it was released and from that moment on, I was hooked. I went home and borrowed the first 3 books from my Dad and started reading. After that I bought the books and went to see the movies the minute they were released.

Since then, I’ve bought endless amounts of Harry Potter merchandise, been to The Making of Harry Potter in the Warner Bros. Studios and been to see Harry Potter and the Cursed Child in London. The last thing on my Harry Potter wish list is to go to The Wizarding World of Harry Potter in Orlando. There’s also some Harry Potter bed & breakfasts and escape rooms in the UK that I would not say no to either.

So here’s to 20 years of Harry Potter and in the words of two of my favourite wizards:

I had a look back over the things I wanted to Focus on in 2017 and I won’t lie, some of them are going horribly wrong. That being said, some are definitely working, or at the very least, improving.

Some of the things that are working:

Saving more money:

Ok so I’m not going to be saver of the year anytime soon but I have made a positive change. I used to save the odd bit of whatever money I have left at the end of the month but now, on pay day, I transfer a certain amount into the savings account I set up in February.

Focussing on my own shit:

I talked about this a little in my last OLW post. Part of focussing on my own shit was thinking about where I was going career-wise. This is kind of a cheat because it’s not something I actively worked on, but I have been offered a new contract in work which will make it easier to plan for the future. There’s still a lot up in the air that I hope is clarified soon so watch this space.

Spending more time with people & books & less time on devices:

Ok this is a small change. I’m probably not spending much less time on devices but I’m definitely reading more and I’ve also started working on my Project Life albums again which is a nice device free, creative (ish) thing to do.

Growing my hair & getting it back to a healthy condition:

So these two things have yet to actually kick in but I have been using Olaplex and I’ve started taking Biotin to strengthen my hair. Fingers crossed I see a difference soon. I’ve also made the decision to dye my hair brown after the summer to see if that helps.
Some of the things that are not working:

Losing more weight:

This is going horribly wrong. I have a great week, then I reward myself with food and have a terrible weak. I read a quote the other day that said “you haven’t come this far, to only come this far” and my friend sent me a picture that popped up on her Facebook Memories from 2 years ago and there’s a huge change so hopefully, they’re the things that will motivate me to push on through.

Being productive & not just busy:

All I’ll say is I put the PRO in procrastination.

The here & now & letting go of the small things:

I’m the biggest worrier and over thinker so these two are proving really difficult, but I haven’t given up.
Are you doing One Little Word for 2017? If not, is it something you might consider?I found this picture on Pinterest. Check out silhouetteonlinestore.com You can keep up to date with my OLW ‘Focus’ over on Pinterest. my name over there is @paparali. You can also check out my other OLW posts here

Johnnie Fox’s, famed for being the highest pub in Ireland, can be found in the Dublin mountains. It is one of the oldest pubs in Ireland, established in 1798. Although it is considered to be a bit of a tourist trap, I always enjoy myself when I go there. They have open fires and entertainment 7 nights a week and during the day on Saturday and Sunday. They serve great food and a lovely pint too, so I hear.

Dave and I decided to go there for our lunch on Friday as we were both off work. The menu is largely made up of seafood, which I never understand since it’s in the mountains and not near the sea. They are famous for their chowder and mussels and as you might know if you read my review of The Fish Shack, I love mussels so they’re always an easy choice for me. The mussels came in a cider, garlic and onion cream sauce. We ordered a portion of chips with them. We also ordered a seafood pie, which is served with mash but we asked for chips instead. They also brought some lovely homemade brown bread for the table before our meal arrived. It would have worked perfectly for soaking up the sauce from the mussels but we were pretty full and trying to leave space for dessert. The only negative I have, if any, is that we had a bit of a cream overload between the mussels and the pie.

There was a coconut cheesecake on the specials menu and I loooove coconut so we shared that and Dave had an Irish coffee too.

Every bit of it was so delicious and we felt fit for nothing but a nap after all of it. If you have the opportunity to go, do it.

I know I have an about page and you can find out a little bit of information about me there and if you follow me on Instagram, you’ll find out plenty but I just wanted to share some things that people probably (or possibly) don’t know about me here….

1. I only learned how to swim in 2011.

I went to plenty of swimming lessons as a kid and was just so terrified of the water that I never seemed to get the hang of it. I went on a holiday to Cuba in 2011 and I learned the breast stroke. It’s still the only style of swimming I can do and I try to go swimming 3 mornings a week. (Operative word being ‘try’).

2. I’m left handed.

Yep! Part of the 10%. We even get our own day for goodness sake. Funny story, when I started school, I had such a problem with writing properly. My teacher had to put a little star at the top left of my page because I was in a bad habit of writing right to left instead of left to right.

3. My middle name is Ann.

After my mother and her mother before her. I took the name Margaret for my confirmation which was my Dad’s mother’s name.

4. I’m obsessed with protecting my skin from the sun.

I rarely ever wear less than SPF 30. I almost always wear SPF 50 on my face when I go abroad and for the last year I’ve worn SPF 30 on my face pretty much every day. I also have a slight obsession with skincare products in general & own waaaay too many!

5. I can watch One Tree Hill over and over.

It’s my go to TV show when I want to binge watch something familiar or if I’m unwell. I would probably pee my pants if it made a comeback.

6. I’m messy, yet organised.

I am soooo messy! My bedroom is NEVER totally tidy and I almost always have a chair-drobe or a floor-drobe BUT I have black & white storage boxes lining all my shelves with everything organised in them. I need to know everything has a home.

7. I am awful at maths.

I mean seriously, hideously awful. I failed it in my Leaving Cert and with absolutely no effort put into getting better at it in the last 10 years, I now can’t do anything but add without a calculator.

8. I also have a really bad sense of direction.

It’s an on-going joke in my family that I have to reset and go home if I want to find my way somewhere. I have to plan routes out in my head before I leave home. Google Maps saves my life regularly.

9. My dream job is to be a party planner/event organiser.

Even though I get extreme anxiety about actually attending parties. Then I tend to almost always enjoy myself thoroughly. I love the idea of organising them and not having to worry about attending them.

10. I have one tattoo on the top of my back.

I got it 5 years ago in Thailand and it says ‘Ancora Imparo’, which means ‘I Am Still Learning’ in Latin. Michelangelo said it just before he died when he was 88 years old.

The sun was out at the weekend so Dave and I went took a trip out to Malahide. First we went to Malahide Castle for a stroll and then we went into the seaside village. We were going to go and have a drink somewhere before heading home but instead came across Fish Shack Cafe. We are both big seafood fans and although there was only beer or wine on the menu, we decided to forgo the drink in favour of some food. I was glad we did.

We ordered Shrimp Nachos and Steamed Mussels, to share, from the ‘Fish Snacks’ section of the menu. The nachos came with Boston shrimp, chorizo, cheese and tabasco sauce. The mussels were fresh Galway mussels steamed with white wine, shallots and garlic. They came with some bread and we also ordered a side of chips to share. It was a huge bowl of mussels and they were really tasty. The nachos came with lots of shrimp and chorizo and although I’m unsure what the cheese was, it was so good. All of that and a Diet Coke came to less than €25. The entire thing was delicious, we got to enjoy it in the sunshine and we left absolutely nothing on our plates. We’ll definitely be going back.

You can check out the Fish Shack Cafe menu here and you can check out their two other locations too.

Age: 9 years old. He’ll be 10 in October! Getting old now…that’s like a million in dog years.

Size: around 28 or 29kg. In other words overweight. He was up to 34kg so he has lost quite a bit.

Colouring: tri-colour

Allergies: grass, dust, dust mites & his own dandruff

Nicknames: Chiefy, Chiefy Chops, Cheeky Chops, Fat Dog.

History: we bought him as a puppy from a breeder. It’s something I’d never do again. They were also breeding German Shepards & West Highland Terriers.

Good with…

Dogs? No & Yes! He tends to be nervous of them mostly. He can play with other dogs but doesn’t necessarily want to.

Cats? No but before lady came along he was terrified of them. She makes him braver.

Kids? Yes fine. Any human who gives him attention is acceptable.

Likes: FOOD, treats, food, did I mention food? His red soft bone toy, covering himself in blankets, rubs and attention of any kind!

Name: LadyBreed: Jack Russell

Gender: Female

Age: 7 years old. We got her when she was roughly 1 & a half years old.

Size: around 8 or 9kg. Also overweight but not by too much.

Colouring: black & white

Allergies: none that we know of.

Nicknames: Lady Lumps, Lady Girl, Mouse Face.

History: She turned up at the Pitch & Putt club my Mam plays in & when no1 claimed her, my Mam brought her home. We brought her to the vets and she wasn’t microchipped. We had no intention of keeping her but she won us over.

Good with…

Dogs? No.

Cats? No, she despises them!

Kids? Yes fine. She loves women and kids but has to come around to men & sometimes she never does.

Likes: Treats, licking people’s faces, climbing up on top of Chief for a snooze and long walks.

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